It was a chance meeting with the famous #justsayhello founder and raconteur Duncan Raban where we were tipped off about the best place to get our tree this year. It seems no-one in Great Britain has escaped the ramifications of Brexit, not even Her Majesty who had just launched a business selling home grown Elizabethan Pine…

Seven decades after it was first released the Christmas classic ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is a holiday year traditional many look forward to including myself. Without wishing to spoil things for those haven’t yet watched, this much I can say. It tells the story of George Bailey who gives up his dreams of building skyscrapers…

Copyright, that is the exclusive right given to originator of works for a period of years to print publish perform file of record literary artistic or musical material is about to suffer a fundamental blow. The Copyright Licensing Agency has applied to the Intellectual Property Office to Operate an Extended Copyright Licence which would allow…

The new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on 25 May 2018 and to try to help address the concerns of smaller organisations (e.g. those with fewer than 250 employees), on 1 November, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) began running an advice line. The ICO is the UK regulatory body that is…

Play well! “LEGO” is a line of plastic interlocking bricks and toys manufactured by the Lego Group (a privately held company based in Denmark). The Lego Group began manufacturing Lego bricks in 1949 and since then a global Lego subculture has developed (movies, games, competitions and six Legoland amusement parks have since been developed under…

Saudi Arabia has become the first country to give a robot citizenship. Before we all panic in a Blade Runner-esque manner, what does this actually mean? It has predominantly been received as a PR stunt to promote Saudi Arabia’s technology industry. The rights Sophia actually has have not been clearly set out but citizenship does…

Trade marks are funny things really, they’re best described as “signs” or “signifiers of origin” and essentially they’re the way that consumers identify you. Because of this, they need to distinctive, so that consumers can distinguish your goods/services from the goods/services of your competitors. Typically brand names and logos are protected by trade marks as…

Around 4,230 trade marks were filed in 2016 – and that was just within the fintech sector. What’s more intriguing is that these applications seem to be made by companies and individuals across the board – from start-ups to multi-national blue chips. One of the main reasons cited for this increased number of applications within…

Margaret was off on another Briffa Celebrates this week to catch up with internet entrepreneur Andrew Seymour. Andrew’s Letproof platform is ‘the future of letting’ and puts landlords and tenants together cutting out the need to visit a lettings agency. The service seems bang on queue for ‘generation rent’ and sign up to the service…

Eminem’s publishing company – Eight Mile Style – has been awarded NZ$600,000 by a New Zealand judge in relation to a copyright infringement claim brought by it against the National Party in New Zealand. In 2014, the National Party used a track which was highly similar to Eminem’s well known track – Lose Yourself –…

The essential function of a trade mark is to guarantee the identity of origin of the goods or services to the consumer, to allow the consumer to distinguish the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. In the UK and EU, signs that are customary in the trade are signs that…

Global sportswear manufacturer Adidas has recently filed an opposition against Turner Broadcasting System’s (TBS) ELEAGUE three stripes logo (comparison picture above). ELEAGUE is a professional esports league that began broadcasting in the summer of 2016 on TBS. The notice of opposition highlighted ADIDAS’s sponsorship of the FIFA Interactive World Cup tournament, a video game competition…